Leakage of contaminants, particularly oil, from oil tankers, offshore drilling platforms, or similar structures poses a serious environmental hazard. Various methods of cleaning up such spills have been devised. However, the longer the clean-up procedures take, the farther the spill travels from the ship. Consequently, the spill becomes even more difficult to clean up.
Devices are known to confine the spill to a manageable area. For example, oil fences comprising floats with curtains suspended from the floats have been used. Such a fence generally must be towed by tugboats until the fence surrounds the spill. A disadvantage to this approach is that time is lost getting the tugboats and the fence to the location of the spill.
Another solution has been to carry the fence on the oil tanker itself. However, previous devices of this nature take up room and are difficult to deploy.